Wave that Flag, Wave it Wide and High
Posted by SCapozzola on July 9th, 2008
As ManufactureThis returns from a colorful July 4th weekend, we take note of some recent news regarding the U.S. flag. Apparently, the U.S. imports roughly $5.3 million worth of American flags each year—with most of them coming from China.
More than one U.S. lawmaker has found the idea of foreign-made flags a bit incongruous. Not only have a host of Chinese products been found to contain shoddy materials and lead paint, but the notion of a repressive, communist state assembling flags for the democratic United States seems a bit illogical.
Earlier this year, West Virginia House of Delegates member Jack Yost sponsored House Bill 4150, which would require that any U.S. or West Virginia flags purchased with state funds be made in American. His bill was signed into law on March 28, 2008.
Last week, Yost was interviewed on CNN’s Lou Dobbs to discuss the bill. A retired Steelworker and army reserve veteran, Yost said that he was motivated to introduce the bill after seeing foreign-made flags used at a veterans memorial ceremony. As he explained on CNN, “I lost all of my pension that was promised to me and my health care that was promised to me, as did thousands of other steelworkers. And as a veteran, I feel that it is unpatriotic and disrespectful to put a foreign-made product on a veterans’ memorial.”
Yost and thousands of other Steelworkers lost pensions when their former employers went out of business due to predatory competition from China. And if $5.3 million in imported flags seems small change, consider that the U.S. racked up a $256 billion trade deficit with China in 2007. Dumping, subsidies, and illegal currency manipulation have given China an unfair advantage over U.S. producers and so, as long as Beijing continues to cheat at the rules of world trade, it makes little sense to wave flags made in China.
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